What’s wong with Indonesian education?

Indonesia has made great strides in terms of improving its education system during
the Reformasi era of democratisation since 1998.

In 2002, newly democratic Indonesia inserted into its constitution a requirement that
governments at all levels to dedicate at least 20 percent of their budgets to education. This
was a major improvement from the authoritarian era, when by 1995 education spending
counted for less than 1 percent of GDP.

According to Unesco, Indonesia’s literacy rate is now high at around 95 percent. Its youth
literacy rate is even more impressive at 99.67 percent.

Nevertheless, other educational indicators illustrate a bleaker picture.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests last conducted by the
OECD in 2015 showed that Indonesian students were performing at lower levels in all areas –
science, mathematics and reading – than the OECD average.

A shocking 42 percent of Indonesian students were failing to meet minimum standards in all
three areas covered by the test – being outperformed by students in neighbouring Malaysia,
Vietnam and Thailand.

“While education spending is now at a level similar to other lower middle-income countries,
it is still less than comparable neighbouring countries,” noted the Lowy Institute’s report.

“The country’s education system has been a high-volume, low-quality enterprise that has
fallen well short of the ‘internationally competitive’ system Education and Culture Ministry
plans anticipate will emerge in the near future.”

Its schools and universities remain plagued by corruption, poor quality teaching and staff
absenteeism.

“The quality of research and teaching in Indonesia’s higher education system — even at the
country’s best institutions — is generally regarded as poor relative to both global standards
and those of neighbouring countries in Asia,” added the report.

For example, the country’s highest ranked tertiary institution, the University of Indonesia,
was listed at 277 in the QS World University Rankings 2018. Only one in ten of those in the
country’s academic labour force has a PhD.

There is little incentive for old elites to drastically overhaul the education system, argued the
Lowy Institute, who would rather exploit it to “accumulate resources, distribute patronage,
mobilise political support, and exercise political control.”

Further reflecting an enduring culture of clientelism from the Suharto era, “teacher and
academic appointments have tended to be made on the basis of loyalty, friendship, and
familial connections rather than merit.”
Somewhat paradoxically, greater engagement of the civil society sector and groups
representing parents, students and teachers in education policymaking during the
democratisation era has also made reform more difficult, argued the Lowy Institute.

Improving the education system in Indonesia is thus not only about increasing resources and
teacher training, but requires a “fundamental shift in the underlying political and social
relationships that have characterised Indonesia’s political economy and shaped the evolution
of its education system”, it said.

Until then, the country’s students will continue to suffer at the hands of politics and power.